The purpose of this blog is to report the different learning experiences in studies about an Open PhD focused on open learning. The different topics featured are: Educational Research, Educational Technology and Media, Educational Startup, Instructional Design, Open Education and learning

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Imagine that you're a bright young individual who has just finished high school. You're eager to explore the next steps on your educational path. Yet, for a variety of reasons, all you see is one closed door after another in your quest for higher education. With no way to pursue your studies, you may slowly become trapped in the all-too-familiar cycle of poverty and repression.

This is a reality for millions of individuals around the world. Even though they have the motivation and qualifications to pursue higher education, they don't have the means to do so. Several factors are at fault:

• Higher education is not affordable: Higher education costs are skyrocketing and people simply cannot afford the escalating prices.

• Insufficient facilities in the local region: For a number of places in the world, a potential student is either in or out to the region's local university based on the results of a placement exam. If the student doesn't pass the placement exam, there are no other available institutions located nearby for the student.

• Inability to leave families to go to facilities located elsewhere: For some potential students living in villages or towns in remote areas, they may be accepted to a university in the city and need to relocate. However, the lost wages of the potential student, coupled with tuition fees, would place an economic hardship on the family.

• Part of a cultural or political regime that restricts movements and opportunities of populations: In many parts of the world, certain social castes, ethnic groups, religious affiliations or genders are not allowed to access higher education. Women, in particular, tend to not have the ability to study at universities in many regions.

The Internet is the great equalizer that allows us to bypass these roadblocks and offer accessible education to people all over the world.

University of the People is not "reinventing the wheel" by offering education via the Internet. However, it's using the wheel efficiently to organize free and open educational resources into structured programs that, when combined with social networks and volunteer professors, can offer sustainable and affordable higher education. It has opened a door to higher education for millions, who otherwise don't have the opportunity.

With all the talk about the cost of higher education, there is an underlying current bringing about a radical change in education. This quiet, yet revolutionary force, is both directly and indirectly changing the bottom line in the price of attaining education. Behind the curtains in higher education are Open Educational Resources.

"Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others."

Recently, well-known author Anya Kamenetz covered Open Educational Resources and various pioneer learning start-ups in her free book The Edupunks Guide to a DIY Education. It is over 100 pages long full of online free or highly affordable knowledge resources. The OER movement is not only growing: it is exploding.

What perhaps is overlooked in daily conversations is that the most important aspect about OER is that it enables the best quality knowledge material to travel free of charge to the most remote and underserved places in the world. Education is no longer only for the elite privileged few; or for those saddled with a lifelong debt burden to achieve it. Education is now for everyone and anyone driven, motivated, inspired and ready to seek it out online. Money is no longer a prerequisite to a quality education -- only a computer and an internet connection remain.

We are part of a new era. From free learning sources such as MIT OpenCourseWare, to fully formed tuition-free degree programs such as those offered by University of the People, the phrase "burdensome tuition" is becoming a phrase of the past. Worldwide disparities in educational access based on economic situation or geographic restriction are being leveled out.

Think what a world we are becoming -- a world where money is not required in order for individual and collective intelligence to be expressed and compounded. Removing money from the equation, we will see in a very short time what universal affordable education will achieve in changing, brightening and modifying the world we live in.

About this Open PhD

The purpose of this blog is to report the different learning experiences in studies about an Open PhD focused on open learning. The different topics featured are: Educational Research, Educational Technology and Media, Educational Startup, Instructional Design, Open Education and learning. The main focus of this PhD is on open learning specifically the use of the web resources and possibly other informal educational resources for self-directed and independent learning with an emphasis on web 2.0 tools for learning and personal learning networks. It's achieved by skills learning, projects, writing, teaching and research. Skills learning is done by taking different open courses and reading different articles, shared on social medias, educational project pages, curated on appropriated on social media platforms, listed on social media networks and saved on social bookmarks. The author designed many educational projects mostly focused on Open Educational Resources, Open Courseware and Open Education. As an experienced educator certified in math he is taking his educational career on the next level by developping Open Popular University www.openpu.wikidot.com and New Direction Education Services www.ndes.wikidot.com where his educational services are advertised. The author writes and pulishes educational articles on his personal blogs and social media. He also curates several articles on appropriate social media platforms.

Other artifacts used for this PhD are Educational and Professional Portfolio and Open PhD candidacy published in Peer-to-Peer University and Wikiversity . The PhD is by research and publication. The articles on Open learning will be used for the publication of a book on open learning. The next phase will be the developement of a thesis. Meanwile and/or after the publication of the thesis the blog will publish academic research on self-directed learning, comment on this research, publish litterature reviews and original research, essays, original research focused mostly on Action Research. It is the intention of the author to work with supervisors, peers, educators, interested organizations in this innovative PhD to get the most widely recognition. The author is interested in having is work validated or credited by a respected educational institution believing in innovative ways of learning

About Me

Yves Simon is an experienced educator certified in Math, self-directed and lifelong learner interested in various ways of learning and media and web technology resources. His educational background is in Civil Engineering, Math, Physics, Science, languages, Educational Administration, Curriculum and Instruction and open learning. He provides face-to-face and online tutoring and teaching services.He also provides other services such as translation in French and English, Math content development and writing and article writing. Visit his website New Direction Education Services at www.ndes.wikidot.com to contact him about services provided. He is particular engaged in the dissemination of web educational resources and tools for learning.

Educational content curation

Open Popular university brings to the world courses from the most respected universities around the world at the graduate and undergraduate level in the fields of Engineering, Math, Science, Education, Human Sciences, etc, In the future Open Popular university will offer online courses directly from this site. For support, collaboration, contact, donation, etc visit the site at www. openpu.wikidot.com. Your support, collaboration and donations will help this site running. Open Popular University is looking for volunteers to teach online courses and needs funds for paid staff to develop the site, a physical location and materials to fulfill its mission to help thousands of learners, self-learners and educators worldwide. The ambition is to bring the world open courses in this site, demystify the fact that knowledge is the privilege of a few and can only be learned in formal institutions.

Math course by Yves Simon

This is a free math course offered by Yves Simon, certified and experienced math educator. For tutoring online and face-to-face, teaching online and face-to-face in the following subjects: Math, ESL, French and Spanish visit NewDirection Education Services at www.ndes.wikidot.com Calculus course